Some people are addicted to love, no matter what the consequences. In a healthy relationship you may hope and even idealize that perhaps you have found the person who may be the fulfillment of your hopes and dreams. But it’s balanced with the realization that it may not work out. You have a safety net called reality. An obsessive lover works without a net and doesn’t even understand the word doubt. When they find a new person, they cry out, “Yes! This is my magic person who can fill all my needs and give me happiness.” Their fantasies and expectations about this special person have very little to do with who that person really is. Their focus is on what they need and what that other person can do to meet those needs.
A person such as this lives with the myth of the ultimate passion. For the person being pursued initially it may be flattering but in time suffocating. Does this fit anyone you know?
For people to fit the pattern of the obsessive lover, they need to meet four criteria. This includes having a consuming, intense, even painful preoccupation for a real or wished-for person in their life. They seem to be consumed by either possessing this person or being possessed by them. Here is where rationality breaks down. The person they desire must be unavailable to them in some way or may actually reject them.
They may have said, “I’m not interested,” “I’m not available,” or “Get lost!” But it doesn’t matter to the obsessive lover. The rejection actually feeds and frightens the obsessive love.
Because of the unavailability or rejection, they begin to behave in self-defeating ways.
Their fear of rejection can have the same effect as having been rejected. And it’s a self-defeating way to live life and create a healthy relationship. The rejections are creatively rationalized. Statements like the following are common:
“I know that she dates other men, but they really aren’t significant to her. She really cares only for me. She’ll realize that soon.” “I call him several times a day and he hangs up. He just can’t face how much he cares for me. I guess he’s overwhelmed by it and can’t handle it. Someday he will.” “He hasn’t called for two weeks. It’s happened before when work gets really busy. When it lets up, he’ll be back.” But all these statements deny the truth.
When sex is a part of this kind of relationship, it further clutters the relationship. In most obsessive relationships, sex plays a major part. And it’s usually very intense and pleasurable. The problem is it’s used to measure the intensity of love, of compatibility, whether the other person cares, and leads to idealization of the other person. The obsessive person uses the sexual relationship as a sign of certainty that this relationship is “the one” for his or her life. But often the intense, passionate sex has been mistaken for love, and the short-termpassion makes any rejection hurt even more.
As I have worked with couples in premarital counseling, I’ve found that about half of them have a pure sexual relationship.
They are not having, nor have they had, sexual intercourse. For those who are engaging in sexual relations, I ask them to bring this to a halt and to maintain a pure sexual relationship until the wedding night. They agree to this, and in time some of them make a decision not to marry. Why? Several have said, including men, that now that there was no sex, they could see their problems more realistically and the driving passion that had seemed to be the glue that kept them together.
An individual can overcome an obsessive love difficulty. If you or someone you are seeing has this problem, put all involvement and dating on hold until it is resolved. It can lead to obsessive pursuit, revenge, stalking, and even violence. Do you or someone you know fit this list? An obsession with love can have the following characteristics, and it only takes a few of these to indicate a problem:
¶They yearn for a person who isn’t physically or emotionally available to them.
¶They live for the time when their desired will be available to them.
¶They believe that if they want them enough, eventually they will have to love them.
¶They believe that if they continue pursuing this person long enough and hard enough, they will accept them.
¶When they are rejected, they want the person even more, and continued rejections lead to depression or rage.
¶They feel victimized because of the lack of response on the part of their partner.
¶They believe only this one person can fulfill their life.
¶They are so preoccupied with the person that their work is affected, their eating, sleeping, etc., or they call the person constantly and at inappropriate times, watch them, check up on them, etc.
This may sound sick to you. It is. But it is reversible; the person can develop normal and healthy relationships.
